Greetings everyone.
I’d like to discuss something simple and self-evident.
In the New Testament, John says:
“God is love.”
My question is philosophical. Not because I don’t know it myself or because any of you don’t, but is it possible to formally and strictly define what “love” is?
Is it sentimental feelings for the object of adoration (eros)?
Or friendship, reciprocity (philia)?
Or selflessness (agape)?
Perhaps it is a desire for the values or ideals of another?
Or a set of hormones released into the blood?
Is it possible to give a formal definition?
@Astorre
At the ontological level, Love must simultaneously be non-insistent (to prevent coercion into erasure / monism) and caring (to prevent abandonment into isolation / pluralism). It must enable (to prevent coercion) and sustain (to prevent abandonment).
The minimal formal definition is therefore:
Love: Relational Enablement (non-insistent/caring)—enabling and sustaining genuine free distinctions and genuine free relational pursuit.
- without coercing into erasure (monism)
- without abandoning into isolation (pluralism)
This is deeper than eros (sentimental feelings), philia (reciprocity), or even generic agape (selflessness). Those are all important expressions, but they are derivative.
This definition is derived in my paper The Relational Precondition of Intelligibility and the Resolution of the One-Many Problem (linked in my bio).
What are your thoughts on this definition?
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The meaning of the word “love” is learned very early in life—let’s say around the age of two. As you admitted yourself, we all already know exactly what it is.
Lurking in the background of your question is the naïve assumption that some philosopher or spiritual guru possesses a much more profound knowledge of the “true reality” behind the word.
Let me save you some time: this guru does not exist. There is no hidden, mystical depth to uncover here.
Love is precisely the basic, functional reality your mother explained to you when you were two years old.
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Philo-Sophia (Love-Wisdom). Philosophers probably won’t sit quietly, dumbstruck, when asked, “what is love?”. Love seems to be foundational to philo-sophizing. The word “philosophy” was but coined by an eccentric mathematician, Pythagoras. Among his many quirks was refusing to eat beans and an odd anecdote relates how he intervened when someone was beating a dog because he recognized his deceased friend’s voice in the dog’s cries. Perhaps we should do some derivation here, if possible, and compute what love is. It would be very enabling as far as I can tell.
“What is love?” can also evoke the answer, “a chemical reaction.” This would be correct, obviously, but dukkha. While the Buddha’s personal discursive exchanges are well-recorded, there’s no mention of anyone asking the Buddha, “what is love?” in them. The Christian core is love as you seem to know: love thy neighbor as thyself.
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I’m always amazed at how quickly everyone figures out my inner motives. Please tell me more about me.
Could you elaborate on your relational approach? I couldn’t access the information in your profile.
That’s the whole point. I’d like to turn to phenomenology and working with the obvious:
What seems self-evident in the “natural attitude” is actually structured by hidden acts of consciousness.
But here’s what’s revealed if we structure the previous answers:
Is love an act of consciousness or an event that captivates me?
Do I constitute the other—or does he “burst” into my experience?
Does love reveal reality—or create an illusion?
I don’t know. A comedian once had everyone in stitches by saying how God created hell where he would send us to be tortured for eternity but that he loves us. 
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Perhaps I will have to add one more question to the list of questions before which philosophy is powerless.
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I agree: I should have wrote “lurking in the background of the question”. My apologies.
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No need to apologize, it’s just humor. Generally, I would also be wary of someone asking questions about such things.
But the topic seemed interesting to me due to its apparent simplicity, which, in reality, turns out to be not so simple.
OK I’ll go to the root just to formally answer the question (as a metaphysician I really like formally clean answers):
Love is the management of a defective egg, itself resulting from a defective solar system.
If you dont’ see of what I’m talking about I can fully explain but I need around 2 pages/1h of work, but I thing you did.
This answer deserves the question, and the question deserves this answer.
And yet, what’s central is care?
sorry you are too smart for me 
I’m 66,6 years old, exactly -with a million factor- the same age the event causing the generalization of love on earth. What did you say?
Please share your knowledge about multipliers and we’ll change the world!
(I think the boss is going to ban us for flooding)
we are not the real terrestrial animals. Contrary to what people believe mammals come from the synapsids which are intermediary between amphibians with an egg needing water and dinosaurs with a true terrestrial egg. This intermediate synapsid’s egg needed constant watering from glands that will become these delicious breast and the egg migrate in the wound. Love is the comportemental extremely heavy management of this defective egg. It permeate all the mammal mind and very badly diminish mammals performance by a factor of 10 (100T vs 10T weight, 13M vs 0,60m flight envergure, etc. the only exception beeing guess what? Whales i.e. return to the ocean). I could also demonstrate how defective is human thinking. The normal mammals niche was extremely small in the dinosaurs area.
Earth is a really bad planet wiped every 300 millions years by a giant meteorite because the solar system is not cleaned: beside Mars and Jupiter (the 66,6 thing came from here) you have unfinished orbitals i.e. missing planets as asteroids belts.
You wanted a deep root explanation and this is the real source of Love. (maybe I could go down to quanta…mmh… maybe our universe relay on a low quality quantum void…)
But OK you are right: let’s stop here, I have some doubts about the mammalian abilities of Jamal
Why my post about post-modernism gets reported and removed for ‘low-effort’ yet this one of just a few words and following chit chat gets allowed. Not fair.
Why did you choose me and my post as an example to support your argument? What does this have to do with me?
Because the thread is an example of seemingly ‘low effort’ OP. You are merely collateral damage. 
I think that, in any case, I and my humble thoughts are at least entitled to permission to remain, since I have become a victim of aggressive actions by the opposing sides.